"The sword is an extension of your arm..."
"Every inch of extra reach is an advantage. Where your hands and feet can't reach, the sword makes up the difference."
"You're holding the sword wrong. Keep your back straight and lean forward slightly. Plant your feet firmly, and keep your eyes level with the tip of the blade, all in one line..."
"When you swing downward, you have to put your strength into the blade to maximize the force of the strike..."
"Wrong. Raise your hands a little higher. Where are your elbows..."
"I told you to look straight ahead, not to expose your chin for your opponent to stab..."
"Your downward strike has to be straight, straight... Swinging like that will make the blade snap..."
"One. Swing down... Put some strength into it..."
"Two. Again..."
"Three... Four... If you haven't finished two thousand swings by sundown, you don't get to eat!"
In a clearing deep in Mount Sagiri, a few chopped-up wooden posts lay scattered about... Urokodaki Sakonji tirelessly corrected Roy's stance, footwork, and sword-swinging angle. After watching him closely for a while, he left him with the task of "swinging the sword two thousand times today" and disappeared.
Going by Shinsuke, Fukuda, and the others' experience, if a beginner could swing a sword a thousand times without collapsing from exhaustion, that counted as a success.
But... two thousand times... All he could say was, "Eiichiro's in for a rough time later."
"Master's taking it out on him." Makomo stood atop a tall birch tree, watching Roy focus on his "Iaijutsu" practice, swinging again and again... The boy was calm and methodical, showing no dissatisfaction or complaints at all over Urokodaki Sakonji's "last-minute increase."
He was a little too calm...
"That's not him taking it out on Roy. It's just that Master has never taught a disciple as talented as Eiichiro."
Grasping the secrets of "Breathing" in ten days—such talent was unheard of... Sabito corrected Makomo. His eyes, hidden beneath his fox mask, stayed fixed on Roy as he practiced. For a moment, his vision seemed to blur, and he saw Giyu as a child, with the same thick, jet-black hair and the same extraordinary talent that others could only envy.
"How many swings did Giyu manage when he first started?" Makomo asked curiously.
"He..." Sabito smiled. "At first, he could barely manage eight hundred. Master had to take hold of his arms and help him force out the remaining two hundred..."
After a moment of reminiscing, Sabito continued, "But his endurance got stronger and stronger. At his peak, he completed 'Ten Thousand Swings' three times. It was after that day that Master took him to the waterfall and began training him in Breathing Style."
"Three times? I've only managed it twice..." Makomo pouted, not quite satisfied.
"That's still impressive. Fukuda only ever managed a little over eighteen hundred swings..."
Shinsuke chimed in, bluntly exposing his friend's record.
"And how much better are you?" Fukuda grabbed Shinsuke by the neck and locked him in a chokehold. "You useless piece of crap. You only beat me by ten swings, and you brag about it every day..."
"Ten more is still ten more..." Shinsuke retaliated with a sneak attack to Fukuda's crotch. The two cursed and wrestled, stirring up a familiar wave of eerie turbulence...
Sabito was already used to their crude behavior. His beautiful eyes remained fixed on Roy below, wondering how far the beginner could go.
"At the very least, I can't do worse than Tanjiro." As Roy swung downward again and again, he knew that in the original story, Tanjiro's first attempt had reached one and a half "Ten Thousand Swings"—that was, fifteen hundred swings... Urokodaki Sakonji had added another five hundred on top of that, clearly intending to test him.
But two thousand was still too few. With a physique ten times stronger than an ordinary person's, as long as his stance and swing angle were right, Roy thought he could complete the real "Ten Thousand Swings"—swinging the sword ten thousand times in a day.
"Whoosh~" The blade cut through the wind and snow, letting out a sharp whistle.
From morning to noon, then on into the evening, Roy didn't stop for a moment, apart from taking a sip of water and eating two dumplings made by Urokodaki Sakonji. Before long, he was closing in on nine thousand...
"Nine thousand one... Nine thousand two... Nine thousand three... Nine thousand four..."
With every downward swing, he grew less composed than before and began to tire... His arms started to ache, and his chest heaved like a broken bellows, "Huff... Huff..." as he panted.
"Monster." Shinsuke, Fukuda, and the other spirits fell into an eerie silence. They went from bickering to pass the time, to lounging around without a care, then to standing upright and staring at Roy in shock... All in a single day.
"That's it... He's not human. He's a demon!" Shinsuke refused to believe his own eyes and settled on a firm conclusion. "Eiichiro must be a Demon, deliberately getting close to Master so he can bite his head off when Master lets his guard down."
"Bullshit!" Fukuda raised a hand and rapped him hard on the head, cursing him out. "You think the sun's just for show?"
"What Demon would dare come out in the daytime?!"
Although Mount Sagiri was shrouded in mist all year round, sunlight occasionally pierced the fog and shone down into the mountain.
Forget Demons—even the Demon King would turn to ash here.
Even so... for a beginner to swing his sword ten thousand times and complete a true "Ten Thousand Swings" was still astonishing...
That Eiichiro kept challenging everyone's understanding of what was possible, again and again!
Sabito stared blankly into space. Then he felt someone tug at his sleeve. Turning his head, he saw Makomo looking at him with shining eyes. "We can finally be free."
Free... It was the dream they had longed for day and night!
"Yes."
Makomo was right. They could all be free.
Sabito drew a breath and nodded firmly. Then he looked again—
The boy in the birch grove stood in the Snow Country, gathering his last bit of strength before lunging forward with a slash...
"Shhk~" The blade sank into the wooden post, slicing through it as effortlessly as scissors through paper!
"One more thousand!"
[Prompt: Swordsmanship +10...]
"Haa—"
He let out a long breath, which unfurled into a dragon of mist.
The severed post rolled to his feet...
Roy stood leaning on his sword. Sweat had already frozen into frost on his bangs...
He smiled and asked, "Master, is dinner ready?"
Behind him... A figure came and went among the shadowy trees, deep in the mist.
Wearing a Tengu Mask, he silently watched the boy's not-so-tall back for a while, then said, "Tomorrow, I'm adding another two thousand."
He turned and left...
"Heh heh heh..." The boy stifled a laugh, then his shoulders shook. He raised his chin, threw back his head, and laughed wildly into the wind and snow...
"Exhilarating!"
His laughter pierced the thick fog...
Startling a flock of birds into flight...
"Caw—"
A foolish snowy owl, too startled to flee, flew headfirst into a branch and fainted on the spot...
Before you continue